GLENDALE, AZ - FEBRUARY 17: Pitcher Clayton Kershaw #22 of the Los Angeles Dodgers poses for a portrait during spring training photo day at Camelback Ranch on February 17, 2013 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

You’ll have to forgive Clayton Kershaw if he is incapable of putting all this into perspective. The Dodgers pitcher knows he’s working on something special, possibly his masterpiece. But it’s a work in progress.

“It’s hard for me to talk in the middle of the season about what’s successful and what’s not,” he said Friday, leaning back in his chair at his locker stall. “The season’s not over yet.”

To understand where he’s coming from, try putting Kershaw’s 2013 season in the context of other masterpieces rather than other pitching performances. Ask Michelangelo how the Sistine Chapel ceiling looked after he painted the flood scene and before he painted God in the act of creation. That’s the idea.

Yet anyone with two eyes — especially if they belong to a hitter with buckling knees and flailing hands in the presence of a Kershaw curveball — can see that something special is in progress. Ignore the wins and losses, and this could be the best of Kershaw’s six seasons in the major leagues.

Kershaw leads the majors with a 1.91 earned-run average, giving him a chance to become the first pitcher in 18 years to lead the majors in ERA in three straight seasons. His strikeout rate is down a little compared to last season — he’s still second in the National League — but that’s by design.

“He’s a lot more aggressive in the strike zone,” Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis said. “He’s not interested in striking guys out like he was in the past. It’s all about getting outs quickly.”

Hitters know what’s coming. Kershaw hasn’t significantly altered his repertoire since he won the 2011 National League Cy Young Award. Why would he?

But all those juicy-looking pitches are forcing batters to swing earlier in the count, resulting in more balls in play. In turn, that has brought Kershaw’s pitch count down and allowed him to pitch deeper into each game than any season in his career. He’s averaging almost 7 1/3 innings per start.

For a Dodgers bullpen that seemed incapable of holding inherited runners on base for three months, switched closers and cycled through set-up men, Kershaw’s impact is going beyond the one day he pitches.

“It really does,” said Dodgers manager Don Mattingly, “because it kind of goes into the day before where you can use guys in your bullpen. The day after, you’re back to rested again.

“If your starter goes out (early) three days in a row and you need four innings out of your bullpen three straight days … it puts you in a bind moving forward. You end up using guys in games you don’t want to use them.”

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Kershaw hasn’t been knocked out of a game less than five innings into a start since April 16, 2011, a streak of 86 starts coming into today. That excludes his first start of 2012, when Kershaw had the flu in San Diego and left after three innings.

As impressive as that streak is, the eyes still gravitate toward wins and losses. Even Kershaw has to tell himself to look away from his so-so 10-7 record.

“You see (Detroit Tigers pitcher Max) Scherzer is 17-1,” he said. “You go to the mound with a ton of confidence when you see that.”

Here’s the rub: In his seven losses, Kershaw has allowed a total of 21 runs. Five times this season he has allowed zero or one earned runs and left with a no-decision. While Scherzer gets more run support than any pitcher in the majors, Kershaw gets the sixth-fewest.

Ellis has a theory to explain this.

“We always get the best from the other starter,” he said. “It seems like every time he’s on the mound the other guy’s throwing a great game, as well. If we can get three or four runs for (Kershaw) we feel great.”

A 4-0 win over the Giants on Opening Day was not the harbinger the Dodgers were hoping for; by the second week of May, they were last in the National League West. However, it was typical of the sort of adversity Kershaw could come to expect.

The score was tied 0-0 in the bottom of the eighth inning when Kershaw batted against San Francisco Giants reliever George Kontos. Kershaw drove the first pitch he saw deep over the center-field wall for his first career home run, sending a surge into the sold-out crowd. Kershaw stayed in for the ninth inning and needed only 94 pitches to complete the shutout.

“That was like a Little League game,” he said. “That was pretty special.”

The home run aside, Kershaw called it his best pitching performance of the season. He’s been chasing his own highest standard since Opening Day.

In another sense, Kershaw is chasing something greater. He is flirting with the single-season franchise record for ERA plus, a statistic that measures runs allowed against the league average. Sandy Koufax holds the record with a 190 ERA plus in 1966, a year that he won the National League Cy Young award and finished second in the MVP voting.

Kershaw enters today’s game against Tampa Bay at 187 and is starting to gain traction as an MVP candidate. Mattingly, who has leaned toward giving position players the award ever since he finished second to Roger Clemens in the 1986 American League MVP race, is even starting to come around to the idea.

“He goes out there 30 times, 35 times,” Mattingly said, “but then as a manager you see how important that is every fifth day. He goes deep into games, saves your bullpen, stops losing streaks, extends winning streaks. you can’t hardly put it — it’s just big.

“He’s got to be considered.”

Kershaw isn’t chasing an MVP award. That can only measure one year at a time, one panel of the great ceiling.

“Consistency is the main drive for the great players in the game,” Kershaw said. “You look for five or six years of dominance in a row. That’s the Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, CC Sabathia — you see guys who have done it year in and year out. That’s what I want to be.”